


Calling

by ainagren



Category: Poldark (TV 2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-04 00:15:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12759180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ainagren/pseuds/ainagren
Summary: Caroline is nursing Dwight after he has come home. Published on Tumblr for the prompt "I think you have missed your calling".





	Calling

His face is pale, except for the marks after his illness, that are angrily red. Caroline is sitting at his bedside, and Dwight is straightening his back, still uncomfortable to be so weak in her presence. After their talk yesterday, it feels better, and she has already shown to him that she understands, now. But there is still a long way ahead of him – of them – until things will start to feel normal again. 

Her forehead has a troubled wrinkle as she is studying him; he notices it, and feels a mixture of pain and comfort. He never wanted to burden her with his own pain, and yet, now that he has told her, it is comforting to know that she knows and cares, and is concerned. 

As he tries to sit up a bit straighter, she puts her hand very lightly on his upper arm.

“Don’t”, she says quietly. “You need to rest.”

He smiles awkwardly and sinks back into the soft pillows. 

“I think that I need to get up and about”, he says, “I think it will make me feel better.”

She nods, but her hand remains resting on his arm, and he doesn’t try to move.

“There will be time to be up and about soon enough”, she says. “But I think that today you should be resting.”

He smiles and closes his eyes, sinking yet a bit further back into the softness of the beddings, and sighs.

“I think you have missed your calling”, he says. “You were supposed to be a nurse.”

She smiles.

“Nonsense”, she snorts. “My calling is to be your wife. And it seems I have not missed it, after all.”

He opens his eyes again, glancing at her. She is looking tired and serious, and he feels a sting of shame and guilt. As if it weren’t enough with the pain of his memories from the war, he also has to carry the burden of being a disappointment to the woman he loves. He puts his hand over his eyes, breathing heavily.

“Do you want me to leave you?” she asks tenderly. 

He fumbles for her hand without looking up, and when he finds it, he takes it in a firm grip.

“It is so strange”, he mumbles, his eyes stinging under his eyelids. “In the prison, I kept dreaming of exactly this – being at home again, being together with you. I would wake up believing it was true, and the disappointment that it wasn’t almost hurt me physically. I cannot explain it. Even now, I feel that I don’t dare to believe it is true, that I am really safe, and that you are here with me.” He sniffs, and dries his nose without looking up, squeezing her hand a little bit harder. “I am afraid of waking up and finding that this moment was just another dream.”

She inhales deeply.

“It isn’t”, she says. 

“And yet”, he continues, painfully, “when you are here, with me, I feel that I cannot be as present and as happy as I ought to be, as I have every reason to be. Now that I am finally back with you, I just want to hide away. Why? What are these strange emotions within me?”

He sobs, still hiding his eyes behind his hand, and Caroline sighs.

“I do not know, my love”, she says and shakes her head. “I do not know.”

His sobbing increases, and they both listen it them cutting through the quiet room. The air is still, faint sunlight is falling in through a gap between the curtains, and Caroline watches the particles of dust that are dancing slowly in the ray of light. 

After a while, he swallows hard and goes silent. Caroline is patting his hand. 

“I have heard that chicken soup is good for the health”, she says, and Dwight blurts out in a strange chuckle. “What?” she says, offended. “Why are you laughing at me?”

Finally, he dries his eyes and looks up at her again, his eyes still red, but with a glimpse of joy in them that sends a jolt of hope to Caroline’s stomach. Then, he sits up, and leans in towards her, touching her cheek gently.

“You are the perfect nurse, just as I told you”, he says. “You are listening to me, and you are finding a cure. And you are patient.” He smiles, and sighs. “I have done nothing to deserve you, and I know it.”

She smiles, her cheeks red, not quite sure if he is jesting or being serious.

“Does that mean that you want me to ask cook for chicken soup?” she asks, and he laughs a little.

“Yes, please”, he says. “And it also means, that I will get out of bed, right now, and get up and about.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“If I am your nurse, you must obey me and stay in bed today”, she says.

“Yes, but you told me yourself, that you are not”, he says, smiling.


End file.
